Believe it or not, I am still seeing many businesses shying away from social – either not even getting on it or, yes, having profiles there, but doing nothing. Why? Are you scared? Of what?

To be honest with you, the pros far outweigh the cons.

Today, platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn are your most powerful instruments for two-way communication and digital relevancy. This means, they offer you the opportunity to talk directly with your customers, but most importantly your customers have the means to talk back to you too, anytime, anywhere, about their needs, their wants, their pain points. And this is where the power of social media lies – in communication that is meaningful. 15 years ago were able to ever come so close to your customers? Did you ever have the opportunity to be so relevant? I’m guessing no.  

72% of marketers believe that content marketing is essential for their business; 33% of them say that it brings them at least double the return on their original investment and 86% are planning to spend more on content in 2015. These are some staggering statistics from a research by wyzowl, showing that content marketing works.

However, it’s one thing to know that something works, it’s another to actually make it work.  

Content marketing is entirely about different types of quality content created and distributed to meet the needs of a relevant audience. The major drivers for successful content marketing that marketers and communicators use are blogging and effective storytelling.

To help you become a content expert, here’s a list of all the things you need to know as well as some inspirational ideas around creating content, storytelling, blogging and writing.

After the PR interviews with Richard Bailey, Pippa Hanson and Jessica Hodkinson, it's time for interview number four in my blog series"Why Work PR?".

Today, a dear friend of mine - Chryssa Skodra - shares her amazing international career experiences with us! I thank her very much for this very personal story that I am sure you will learn a lot from! 

Before getting to the interview, the way Chryssa and I met and how our relationship has been progressing, is an interesting story on its own. Two years ago, I was working on a cross-border management project with students from Finland and The Netherlands. It was an exciting 6-month real world experience. One of the girls from my team - Tuula - was from Haaga-Helia University of Applied Sciences in Finland and as we got to know each other, she said I had to meet her PR and Communications lecturer Chryssa, with whom we apparenlty shared so many things in common. It was Tuula that introduced us virtually and then arranged for us to meet face to face when I travelled to Finland to present the results of the project. Chryssa and I immediately bonded. We really are passionate about the same things, we are very like-minded and we have been in regular contact ever since then, working on various projects and sharing ideas. I am so happy to have met Chryssa - my digital soulmate :)  

Have a look at ther website and blog posts and connect with her on LinkedIn and Twitter. She really is a PR extraordinaire and a tremendous digital storyteller you would be lucky to have in your network, as I am! 

Why Work in Public Relations: Interview with Chryssa Skodra

1. As a short introduction, can you tell us a little bit about you and what you do?

I’m a PR professional from Greece living in Finland for a decade. A communication and media expert by education and profession, working in higher education since 2010 as well as a PR entrepreneur and digital storyteller. I have been blogging since 2003 and I am a brand ambassador for a variety of lifestyle and technology brands. Academically, I hold a Bachelor of Science in Communication and Media, a Diploma in International Project Management and a Master of Music in Arts Management. In addition, I’m a certified Entre-Coach (coaching young entrepreneurs) and an Accredited Lecturer in Intercultural Management and Organizational Culture by The Hofstede Centre. 

Consumers have changed. They know they have the power. And they use that when they make purchase decisions.

The times when companies simply used to talk about their business and their products are gone. Now is the time of the consumer, where WIIIFM or “what’s in it for me” is more relevant than ever.

In the world of social media, blogging, podcasting, video broadcasting, etc. customer-centricity is the only way for them to be heard among the noise. It is WIIFM that brands need to communicate throughout the entire customer journey.

There’s one industry where this is extremely palpable – sustainability with surrounding terms such as resource scarcity, sustainable supply chains and sourcing, climate change, eco-efficiency etc.

Why? Because all these words are confusing, hard to understand and often regarded as greenwashing by the normal consumer.

That’s something I’ve discovered when I was doing my own research for my dissertation, but is also evident year after year in the results of Sustainly’s Social Media Sustainability Index.

The latest one even opens up with the question: “How do you talk about sustainability when no-one really knows what it means?”

Our behaviour as consumers and shoppers has changed dramatically over the past few years. We now not only buy online, but we do research on-the-go or in-store, we compare vendors and products on our smartphones, we rely on social media for recommendations and ideas.

As a recent report by PwC points out, we are inclined to shop multi-channel – the power of choice lies in our hands, it is up to us to decide where to buy and when to buy.

The consumer and buyer journeys have become increasingly complicated and so understanding and actually creating a sales cycle turns out to be an almost impossible task for companies.

One is certain though – brands cannot ignore the digital revolution. They are required to use digital technology and create new buying experiences that are better fitted to the way we now like to explore, learn, buy, try and recommend. And that’s largely mobile and online. 

Even Google has realised that – coming April 21^st, Google will start penalising websites that are not mobile-friendly, which will have significant impact on search results and companies’ ability to rank for consumer queries.

And let’s not forget that many of us are now addicted mobile windows shoppers – we may make the actual purchase more on our desktops or in-store, but it is mobile that inspires us and drives us to buy. It is Instagram that we learn about new products, it is Facebook that we get recommendations from friends and families, it is Twitter that we learn about brand fails – and we access those networks mostly through our smartphones.

So, what can brands do to be part of our consumer journeys?